This is the first subscription box of polish that I have received. I’ve not signed up to one before because I now have so much polish (I’m approaching 1,000 bottles) and I think that I probably own practically every colour out there, in every finish. (OK, so maybe I don’t have all the greens – as green is not a favourite of mine!) I’m also running low on space to store them all, so these days I am much more picky about buying polish and only buy ones that really speak to me.

Festival nails using the June 2016 Nailbox

But I can see the appeal of these boxes. Even now I do love some nail mail. And to have a surprise package of nail goodies once a month would be wonderful.

The June 2016 Nailbox is called Festival Fever and contains four nail polishes and one nail art item:

I’ve used all the contents to create these festival nails. I took my inspiration from a similar manicure I saw – but I’m sorry to that original artist, because I cannot now find it. So if you think this looks a bit like a manicure of yours – created with different colours and without the glitter – then it’s possibly yours that I derived mine from.

Festival nails using the June 2016 Nailbox

All these products are excellent and I was especially pleased with the OPI; to get a fairly recent, full-size OPI in a box is great.

Rimmel Cheeky Chap – the pale blue polish – is a matte polish, but I’ve top-coated it so it is shiny on this manicure.

The Essie glitter was a little runny, so I had to use several attempts to dab it on with the brush to get an even coverage. In hindsight, it would have been easier to apply it with a sponge.

You can sign up for a monthly Nailbox for as little as £13.50 a month. The August 2016 box sounds great. According to their website, it’s called Into the Sunset. The contents are worth nearly £40 and it will contain “four nail polishes and one stamping tool”.

For this manicure I’ve used:

Green: Bourjois Turquoise Block

Blue: Rimmel Cheeky Chap

Peach: OPI Is Mai Tai Crooked?

Glitter: Essie Jazzy Jubilant

White: Barry M Cotton

Striping Tape: Elegant Touch Stylist Metallic Nail Art Tape

Top coat: Glisten & Glow HK Girl

All manicure images are copyright to Kerruticles unless otherwise mentioned.
The June 2016 Nailbox was sent to me for review. All views expressed in this post are my own, honest and unbiased opinions.

We are all doing turquoise or aqua nails for the 40 Great Nail Art Ideas group. My own theme is fluid lines, so I have some turquoise and aqua wavy stripes.

I started with a base of the glitter polish. This is an Accessorize polish, Forever Emerald. There is something amiss in the Accessorize naming department though, because this absolutely is not emerald. It’s firmly turquoise or aquamarine.

Turquoise and aqua wavy stripes

It took three coats to give enough opacity for my liking, so a base coat of a matching colour will be needed next time I wear it. I do love the bottles of the Accessorize polishes. You can probably see from the picture that they are round, but multi-faceted – like a diamond – with rose gold caps.

After the base had dried, I used wavy French tip guides and painted on a light turquoise, Ciaté Ahoy Sailor, and a more greeny-aqua colour, Essie Melody Maker.

Turquoise and aqua wavy stripes

I’m not too happy with these nails and will probably remove them after just a day’s wear. The many glitter coats, plus an intermediate top coat, then colour, then another top coat, plus base coat, means this manicure is about seven coats. It makes it look a bit clumsy I think. And I haven’t cleaned up so well around the cuticles either and haven’t capped the tips very well. I’m not sure where perfectionist Claire has got to at the moment – I’m sure she’ll be back!

For this manicure I’ve used:

Colours: three coats of Accessorize Forever Emerald, one coat of Ciaté Ahoy Sailor, one coat of Essie Melody Maker

Top coat: Glisten & Glow HK Girl

All manicure images are copyright to Kerruticles unless otherwise mentioned.

I did these nails for a little girl I see at my son’s cricket training most weeks. She’s fascinated by my nails – most people aren’t, so I am grateful for her interest – and she asked me to do something different for this week’s training, not just a plain colour. But, she wasn’t there today! Her brother was at the training, but she hadn’t come along too.

I got this combination in a dream, bizarrely. The grey was more taupe-like, but I spotted this grey before I went looking for anything more beige, and thought it went really well with the peach. Goodness only knows why I was dreaming about nail designs though.

I had seen a lovely manicure on Pinterest using colours similar to this and done as a cloud manicure.

I was going to recreate it exactly, but changed a couple of things. Firstly, the original creator had used Essie Mint Candy Apple. I’ve overdone the mint a bit recently and wanted to try it with a more blue colour, rather than a minty green.

Secondly, I wasn’t sure how good I would be at doing a cloud manicure, so I chickened out and used tape instead.

I’ve used all these polishes before except for Collection 2000 Candy Floss, which I got in a swap with Cazzy Durcan of Special Girl Nails. It’s quite a nice opaque colour. I’ve used it on top of the silver and it only needed one, thickish coat.

I created and wore this manicure straight away, which is a very rare thing for me to do. Normally, I will wear a plain colour, then after a day or two will look to jazz it up somehow by adding other colours.

But I saw this manicure on Pinterest and was immediately inspired to recreate it:

I didn’t use quite the same colours. The pinner has used a deep raspberry, where I’ve used black; and she’s used a pale pink where I’ve used a cream. But the final effects are pretty similar.

I painted two coats of OPI My Vampire Is Buff, top-coated it and then waited for it to completely dry. Then I taped it off and added the coral colour: George Love Rat. I top-coated again, taped it off and painted the black: Collection 2000 Liquorice.

Unsurprisingly, because of its light colour, My Vampire Is Buff was a little streaky after the first coat, but the great OPI formula meant the second coat levelled itself wonderfully to leave a nice opaque and smooth finish.

Love Rat and Liquorice both needed thickish coats to get an opaque effect, but also went on well and dried quickly.

I rather like this. I think there are lots of other colour combinations that would suit this look too.

About me

I'm Claire Kerr and I'm a UK nails blogger. I've only been addicted to nail polish since 2012. Some kind of mid-life crisis turned me from a tomboy into a girly girl!

I had been posting pics of my manicures to Facebook, really as a way of documenting them for myself, but I was filling up my timeline with the photos and most of my friends weren't interested. So I started this blog instead!